


Something Real to Hold on To

by katikat



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 05:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14013366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katikat/pseuds/katikat
Summary: His head hurts and he’s been shot. That’s all he knows. That’s all he remembers. Mac’s POV. (Unbeta'd)





	Something Real to Hold on To

His head hurts. It hurts  _a lot_.

There’re people everywhere, running and yelling, standing and gawking. And emergency vehicles, ambulances, fire trucks and cop cars; their flashing lights are making his headache even worse. And then there’s the fire, of course, big and roaring, its tall golden flames licking the sky.

_What… what happened here?_

Something goes off, the flames shoot up even higher, and the explosion makes the gawkers scream and duck. He jerks, too, and the instinctive recoil turns his headache into agony and his queasiness into nausea. Quickly, he leans over a trash can and throws up.

Everything hurts. Everything. He touches the back of his head lightly and feeling the warm wetness there - his fingers come away bloody - he starts shivering. He feels hot and cold at the same time, he’s sweat soaked and there’s white noise in his ears.

He really should ask for help, someone…  _anyone_. He  _needs_ help. But as he stands there, staring down at his bloody fingers, images flash through his mind,  _disconcerting_ images. Of himself. Inside the warehouse that’s now burning. Working on a bomb. Did-did  _he_ do this? Did he blow up the building? Did he-did he  _kill_ someone?

He can’t think. Somehow, he knows that he’s usually good at that, at thinking, but right now, he can’t. His thoughts are jumbled and his mind’s hazy with pain. He has no idea what’s going on and that scares him. But when he looks at the golden flames, when he feels the heat, when he smells the smoke, the fumes…

He sees another warehouse burning, he sees himself being arrested, booked, interrogated… A feeling of dread grips his chest and makes it hard to breathe. He can’t go to the cops. He’ll be arrested. He’ll end up in jail. He can’t do that again. He  _can’t_!

Dread turns into panic and he stumbles and trips and bumps into someone, one of the gawkers. The man turns around with a glare but when he sees him, some of his annoyance disappears, replaced with vague concern.

“Hey, you okay? You need help? Should I call someone?”

Call someone? Like… like the  _cops_? No. No, no,  _no_. He needs to get away, to rest for a while, to-to gather his thoughts, somewhere safe, away from here. He needs to get away from here. Now. Right now.

He starts backing away, slowly at first, then more quickly when he sees the man turn to the roadblock the cops set up and call one of the officers there over. No.  _No cops_!

Running and stumbling, he bounces off the brick wall of yet another warehouse, the third one down from the blazing inferno at the end of the street. He turns into an alley, looking for a safe place to hide. And he finds it, between two dumpsters. He crawls into the gap, all the way back, and there he curls up, against the wall, hiding, hiding, no one will find him here,  _shh_ …

* * *

His dreams are muddled, they don’t make any sense at all.

He’s inside the warehouse and there’re being shots fired, someone’s shooting at him - at  _them_! - at him, and there’s a bomb -  _“Can you disarm the damn thing?” -_ and then more shooting at… yes, at them, it’s  _them_ , him and someone  _else_ , and  _\- “Yeah, I’ll take care of it. Go! Go!”_  - but something’s wrong, there’s a sharp pain and-and-and he promised to take care of the bomb but he can’t, he tries but he can’t, it goes off and he’s flying through the air, through glass, through air…  _so much pain!_

* * *

He wakes up with a jerk just as the sky starts turning pink with upcoming dawn. He still can’t remember anything, not really, flashes and impressions, that’s all he gets. But at least the pain in his head eased a notch. That’s the good thing. The bad thing? The pain in his gut became all the sharper for it.

Carefully, he touches his stomach. More wetness. Warm wetness, still trickling from the-from the… He swallows hard. Bullet hole. It’s a  _bullet hole_! He was  _shot_. Stifling a moan of pain, he reaches around and finds another hole, a slightly bigger one, in his lower back. The bullet went through and through.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he bites his lip hard and swallows bile. This isn’t good, this isn’t good at all. He has to find help. He must. But even the idea of approaching a cop makes his heart race. He feels sick again but there’s nothing in his stomach to throw up anymore. If only he could remember!

But he has to do something, he can’t just hide here and wait for it to get better. And so he takes a deep breath and with one hand pressed against his wound, he crawls out of his hidey hole to look around. No cops, no gawkers.

Reeling, he approaches the alley’s entrance and peeks out. The fire’s almost out. There’re now just the emergency vehicles left. People must’ve gotten bored with the spectacle and went home. Two of the cop cars are parked  _in front_ of the roadblock.

He shouldn’t. It’s too big a risk. But he needs help.

As cautiously as possible, he sneaks up to the first car. When he finds it unlocked, he can’t believe his luck. He could’ve forced it open - for some reason he’s sure he knows how to do that - but it would’ve cost him time and it might’ve drawn attention to him.

Pulling out the emergency kit, he drops down on the pavement, hidden from prying eyes by the shadow of the car, and patches himself up as best as he can. It’s a slow process - much,  _much_ too slow - and it hurts bad, so bad, it turns the throbbing pain in his side into agony and he has to bite his lip so hard it bleeds to keep himself from screaming. Tears trickle down his cheeks as he squeezes his eyes shut, silently pleading for it to be over, please, just let it be over!

When he’s done, he feels lightheaded, nauseated and weak. He’s sitting on the ground, among wads of blood soaked gauze, and dangerously close to people who would arrest him if they found him, and he still has no idea what to do next. If only he could remember! He almost got killed and he has nowhere to go, at least that he knows of.

_“Every time we get nearly killed, you come down here to talk to your dead dad.”_

That memory - and yes, it’s a memory, a  _real memory_! - flashes through his mind, so sharp and clear that it steals his breath. It’s suffused with warmth and fondness, with security and safety. Who was he with? Where were they?

He tries hard to think, to dig it out of his rebellious mind. And though he can’t remember the  _who_ , he finally dredges up the  _where_. Yes, it was a cemetery. It happened in a  _cemetery_. And if he remembers correctly, not all that far from here, considering. Finally,  _finally_ he has something real to hold on to.

And it’s a good thing, too, because in that moment, the radio in the car crackles alive and an announcement comes through, a BOLO for a white male in his late twenties, blond-haired and blue-eyed, 5’10”… It’s him, they’re looking  _for him_!

No.  _No, no, no_! He needs to get out of here, now, this instant.

With his heart in his throat, he crawls inside the vehicle and softly clicks the door shut. Stealing a cop car is a bad idea, a  _really_ bad idea, but he has no choice. He knows he was  _somehow_ involved in the warehouse explosion - maybe he did it, maybe he tried to stop it, he doesn’t know which is the point! - but dealing with cops is the last thing he needs right now.

It takes him all of five seconds to hotwire the car, then he’s backing out of there, turning, driving down the street, away from the fire, away from everything - with one destination in mind, the one place he remembers clearly.

* * *

When the cops discover the theft of their car and radio it in, he’s still some distance away from the cemetery.

Knowing the car can be traced, he leaves it parked at the curb. It’s actually good so because his headache flared up again and he can barely see straight now, all is blurry now and his hands are trembling so hard he had trouble keeping them on the steering wheel. What little ability to think he gained back after his rest - if one could even call it that - is slipping away again and all that’s keeping him on his feet now, is the need to reach that place where he felt warm and safe at some point in the past.

When he arrives at the cemetery gate, he has no idea where to go, the place is huge and shrouded with early morning mist, but his feet must know the way well because they seem to be moving of their own volition. He lets himself be carried, stumbling dazedly along. He just wants to feel safe again and rest. He’s so tired and he hurts so much.

When he finally stops, he has no idea why he did that, why he came to a halt in this very place. He stands there, swaying, one hand pressed against the blood soaked bandage on his side. He wipes his forehead with the other and realizes he stopped sweating some time ago; even in his befuddled state he knows that that’s not good. What is he doing here? Why–?

Then he looks down, at the headstone in front of him.  _Jack S. Dalton Sr._ , it reads. Jack S. Dalton. Jack Dalton. Jack. The bubble of warmth in his chest expands. Jack means safety. Somehow, he knows that. It’s as indisputable as a mathematical equation. And he knows his math.  _Jack_. All he needs to do is wait for Jack. Jack will make everything better.

His knees give out and he sinks to the grass. It’s wet with morning dew and so pleasantly cool against his hot, dry forehead.

* * *

“… kid! Hey, Mac! Come on, buddy, come on! Don’t do this to me. Boze, call 911,  _now_! Mac, wake up!”

There’re hands on his face. Before, he was hot but now, now he’s cold and those hands are  _so warm_. He shudders and moans because his shiver sends pain shooting through his head and his stomach both.

“That’s it!” A joyous exclamation. “That’s it, buddy. Open your eyes. Come on!”

He obeys. He can’t  _not_ obey. He blinks his eyes open and stares up. Everything is still foggy. Someone’s leaning over him. And he knows that person. He knows the man. He smiles.

“Jack…” he croaks out, his mouth and his throat are parched.

The man, Jack, beams down at him and there’re tears in his eyes. “Yeah, me. It’s me. God, kid, you had us  _worried_. When that warehouse blew up, I thought-I thought you were–” His voice fails him and he has to look away.

He blinks slowly. “Was it…  _me_? Did I blow… it up?” he asks, confused.

Jack’s eyes widen. “What?  _No_! We were there to  _stop_ some gun traffickers from selling their merchandise. And they decided they would rather destroy it all than get caught. You tried to stop them, Mac!”

More slow blinking. He -  _Mac?_  - can’t seem to keep his eyes open. “Oh. They-they shot me,” he says, slurring a little, and lifts his hand from his side to show Jack his bloody palm.

Cursing, Jack lifts his shirt to take a look at the blood-soaked bandage. “Where’s that ambulance, Boze?!” he yells over his shoulder. Then he turns back, looking anxious, even wild. “Why did you run, Mac, buddy? If the guy you bumped into in the street hadn’t told the cops, if I hadn’t realized where you were headed once Riley tracked the car you stole…” He shakes his head.

He -  _Mac, he’s Mac!_  - closes his eyes for a moment, then he opens them again. “My head hurts,” he replies by way of explanation, his voice barely a whisper. “I don’t-I don’t remember. It’s all so jumbled. I remember you, you’re  _safe_. But I don’t… Mac, is it my name, Jack?”

Jack looks stricken for a moment, then very, very gently he runs his fingers over Mac’s - that’s his name, right? - head, through his blond tresses and to the back, to the sorest spot, jerking away when Mac whines in pain.

“Jesus, kid,” Jack whispers anxiously, staring down at his bloody fingers for a moment, transfixed, before he wipes them off on his jeans. “Yes. Yes, you’re Mac,  _Angus MacGyver_. You work for the government. You’re one of the good guys.”

Angus MacGyver -  _“that poor little bomb nerd with the silly hamburger name,”_ flashes through his mind for some reason, said in Jack’s warm, amused voice - Mac. Yes, it feels right. He’s one of the good guys. A tightly wound knot inside his chest relaxes.  _One of the good guys._

“You promise?” Mac asks hoarsely because he isn’t sure of anything right now, because his mind’s full of jumbled, broken, disconnected thoughts, memories and impressions, at least that’s how it feels to him.

“I promise,” Jack says earnestly, taking Mac’s hand in his and squeezing hard.

Alright, then, Mac thinks, letting out a deep breath. If Jack says so then it’s all right. He’s finally safe. He squeezes Jack’s hand back and tries to stay awake, for him, while in the distance, the siren of an approaching ambulance grows louder.


End file.
